


the end of the end of the world

by Marianne_Dashwood



Category: Original Work, Pathfinder (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Babies, Dark Past, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, Non-Graphic Violence, Original Character(s), POV Original Female Character, Parent Death, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-07 02:20:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18863758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marianne_Dashwood/pseuds/Marianne_Dashwood
Summary: This is what she has left. This is what she will protect, no matter who stands in front of her. Rage boils within her and she chokes it down, bites down on flesh until the rolling in her stomach settles and she can try to breathe again.





	the end of the end of the world

**Author's Note:**

> My pathfinder campaign wrapped up recently and having been with this character for over a year, I wanted to write a little epilogue for my changeling bloodrager, Aella.

The woods were very quiet this time of year. That was something she both cherished and hated. There was no background bickering, no wheeze and screech of metal armour on metal armour, the light scraping of sand. It was cooler here too. No blazing sun, and no damp mould creeping in from every corner either. There was just her, the trees, and the light wind ruffling the leaves.

But if she closed her eyes, she was always back there. Knees up to her chest, surrounded by the remains of things that should never have lived at all, wrenched out of the bodies of innocents. Bodies that she had dug her claws into and tore apart. Unable to do anything as they buried her friend into the stonework. In the end, she didn't even have the voice to say goodbye. Just watched at the artificial body slowly stopped it's motions, and the magic rushed though the seal. The dwarven engineers let out a sigh of relief. But she hadn't. Not yet, anyway.

She accompanied the dwarves as far as their city, but her goals did not lie there. They lay beneath the city, in the tunnels of the ancient ruin where she had begun. The Queen was surprisingly easy to find, but then again, she had fulfilled her deal. The bubbling rage in her blood sang the moment she stepped into Fae, but no longer did her soul ebb away like the tide. The world of the choiceless beings no longer drew her in as it once had. It was a dull ache, rather than a burning fire.

Her mother was dead. Her friends had gone, spread among the world and out of it. There was only one thing left for her now. The Autumn Knight seemed reluctant to return the child, but she took him nonetheless, marvelled at how he had grown in the short time since they had stopped the apocalypse, since she had killed her mother.

She whispered his name to him, the name of her lost friend, and took him from the Queen's realm. She did not look back.

In the time it took for her to return to her homeland, her son learned first to crawl, in a small inn on the edge of the desert, then to walk, stumbling at first on a mossy glade that they had camped in for the night, then to run. Luckily, when he did so, they were taking a path through the gentle snows of the northern mountains, and he only laughed whenever he fell.

The journey was not always so full of laughter. Sometimes, she thought that killing a goddess had been easier than some of trials that they passed though. Then again, she had not killed the goddess while taking care of a rambunctious toddler. There were many nights when it was only her son's smile that let her force herself to her feet again.

She had never particularly held much attachment for the small woodside village she had been raised in, by people she now knew were not her parents. She had spent everyday since she was a child wishing to escape, to have some grand adventure. And now she had, and she wished more than anything to return. She should have known that it would not be the same. Bad enough that she returned unwedded with a babe in arms, but her journey showed on her body clearly, with no regard for the quiet life she wished to lead. The scars of closed wounds, the guarded way she held herself, her teeth and nails that were just too sharp to be normal and her  _ eyes,  _ they all stuck out to the world, a marker of who she had become. Of  _ what  _ she had become.

The village was rebuilding itself; apparently the Goddess had even managed to extend herself to this far, but there was no place for her here. No matter what she had done to save their lives, she knew the hateful way these people looked at her, at her son. He would never be truly safe here.

So she fled, again, and this time, took with her all she loved. This time, she chose to leave, not pulled away by some force she did not understand.

Her son loved the woods they settled in. They did not live so far from civilisation, but they lived deep within the woods, in a small clearing that one would only find by pure luck or if they already knew exactly where it was. The frame of a cottage was already standing, and she and her child slept under the watchful stars until she had repaired the roof, replaced the windows with what she could. She hunted food for them, first with him strapped into a pouch on her back, then beside her as he learned to stay still and quiet. She taught him to turn away when she took something down. She didn't want him to see what she became out of necessity.

She learned to survive, to thrive in the thick woods, and with every passing summer, the breath she had been holding since the end of the end of the world escapes a little more, her nightmares get less and less frequent.

Stories spread. She knows this. She hears of the Gorgon who killed a queen, she hears of the dwarf leading her people into a bright new age of knowledge and passion. The villages around speak of the witch who lives in the woods, who protects a treasure so precious that she rips apart any who try to take it from her with her bare hands. They say she has the claws of a bear, and the eyes of panther, and she will leave nothing of you behind to bury.

The men who tried to come for her today did not heed those stories. She heard their shouts, the crunch of branches and leaves under their feet, and told her son to hide. There is a crawl space, somewhere only he can go, and it has a small bed and food and toys, and he knows he must stay there until she comes for him again. These precautions still do not stall her fear, as she waited for those who would hunt her.

Anger rose within her, springing forth as if she had never tried to bury it, twisting and changing her body in defence of the one person she has left. When they say anger changes you, they did not mean it so literally. The men came looking for a monster. They found one. Their blood watered the wildflowers under her feet, the wildflowers that just earlier, her son had picked, pointing out each colour with innocent curiosity. When she is done, there are several new, more gruesome, flowers growing within the meadow.

Her home, for now, is safe. This is what she has left. This is what she will protect, no matter who stands in front of her. Rage boils within her and she chokes it down, bites down on flesh until the rolling in her stomach settles and she can try to breathe again.

And the woods are loud in their silence. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to check out more of my writing, please do! My Tumblr is marianne-dash-wood and my twitter is @MJDashwood! Come say high! (And please do kudos and comment if you enjoyed!)


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